The Hair Cut by Tricia Patras

It was my last year as a teenager, three months into being 19. On this gloomy Thursday afternoon in October,  I wanted to change my hair. I drove from the city to the suburbs to have lunch with my mom and check out this new hair salon. 

“It recently opened down the street and has cheap prices. Just try it out. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to go again,” she said as she dropped me off. 

I walked in and a middle-aged man with classic dark features greeted me. My mom left to run some errands and said she would be back in an hour or so to pick me up. “I’ll text you when I’m outside,” she said as she left. 

For the next hour, it was just me and this man, alone in his salon. 

We spent most of the time talking about my college experience and what his inspiration was to open a salon. Though his questions were very personal, I didn’t think he meant to be inappropriate, just friendly, so I answered him honestly. The more he talked to me, the more uncomfortable I became.  It crossed a line when he said, “Do you have a boyfriend?” and “Do you know how beautiful you are?” 

I tried to convince myself to feel more comfortable about being alone in a space with an older man, who was clearly asking inappropriate questions. I didn’t want to accept my initial fear instinct, assuming it had to be me who was wrong about him. 

After what seemed like forever, my haircut and color were finished, and my mom was running late. 

 “Hey, I’ve really enjoyed your company. I’d love to treat you to a free massage,” the man proposed. “We can go in the back to my massage room.” 

Confused by this, I froze, not knowing how to answer. He then interjected with three words I wish I could forget: “Don’t be shy”. 

Still giving him the benefit of the doubt, I thought to myself that this was harmless. He’s just gregarious and not interested in me in that way. I’ve been told I dramatize everything, and I didn’t want to trust myself or my assumptions about the circumstance. 

As he led me into the back of his salon, I felt a jolt of shock when he asked me to take off my top. “I give great massages,” he said.

As the 19-year-old girl I was, now in the back room with this 45-year-old man, I still did not recognize the severity of this situation. I gave myself nervous permission to go against everything my intuition was telling me.

I then proceeded to unbutton my top. 

This is when the flashbacks hit me the hardest. 

If I let myself unblock this moment, I can still feel the touch of his clammy, masculine hands on my soft, cold body. I can remember how uncomfortable I was, trying to hold my hand over my breast and me making a joke about how I didn’t need that part of my body touched. Then I remember him insisting, and hearing the dark tone of his voice urge me to “just relax”.  I was now watching this happen from outside my body, witnessing everything from the perspective of my own ghost. I remember sitting up, with my breasts exposed, unable to move. The light chill of the room was jolting goosebumps throughout my body. For what felt like an eternity, I just sat there, letting his hands ‘massage’ my tender and now, cold breasts. “You are filled out nicely, dear,” his voice said hauntingly. As this was happening, I could feel small doses of my preserved innocence being taken away from me. My trust in the world and in myself was receding. As I felt unable to stop it from happening, I kept thinking, how could I not have seen this coming? 

Helpless, I felt trapped by the circumstance, frozen in my body. I told myself I had willingly walked to the back room with him. Maybe I had led him on. I felt responsible for the situation in a way that has taken me years to overcome. Years to realize that I was actually a victim of sexual assault.  

After this had happened, I was so angry. The thing is, I was mostly just angry at myself. I saw myself as strong and smart. How could I have opened myself up to this situation? The pain of feeling this could be my fault doubled down on the pain of the experience itself. Next time, I will be smarter, I thought. I will keep my guard up from here on out. Never again will I be weak. 

What I didn’t understand is that I should have held that man accountable. Instead, I put that shame on myself. I let embarrassment overcome acceptance. 

Denial made me feel safe, like it had never happened. I could dissociate from the experience, and avoid the shame I was holding over myself. As long as I lived in this world of denial, I wouldn’t ever have to live in the world where I had to relive this moment. 

‘This only happens to people who are weak,’ I thought to myself. I never wanted to be put in that category. I sincerely told myself that I was sexually assaulted because I was weak. 

As long as I kept this memory just within myself, no one would see my “weakness.” I wish I could go back to that 19 year old girl and tell her how strong she was and how unfortunate of a situation this was. And how it wasn’t her fault. Ever. 

It wasn’t until the time of the Me Too movement, that I started taking stock of this disturbing October day more and more. It then hit me that I, for so long, could resonate with all of these victim’s voices. We were never weak—we were just silenced. The silence and fear over time morphed into the thought thatwe were the problem. How reassuring it was to understand that we were not. 

I hated that I needed the reassurance of many others in being able to come forward with my story. I hated that I silenced my own voice for him. For the fear of others not believing me. For the fear that I would be seen as this fragile basket case of a woman, instead of the strong and empowered woman I actually was. But over time, I found my voice and could see the entirety of what had happened. 

I have kept most of this experience blocked out of my mind. But at times, pieces of it come back to me. When these pieces form together to make a memory, my heart starts beating dramatically and my stomach instantly drops. Suddenly, I start feeling uncomfortable even in my own skin. Disgust and shame move in, and my mind is lost within those feelings. When the memory passes, I promise myself to push it out next time. It’s better to feel nothing than to feel this, I always thought.

It took eight years for me to tell anyone what had happened. Still, to this day, I have only told about five people. For so long, I didn’t want to accept that this was a part of my story. I didn’t want to give that man in the salon the right to be remembered. But in order to be honest with you, I have to be honest with myself about the memories that have molded me into the person I will forever keep trying to understand. Throughout these past eight years, I’ve gained confidence from my peers to finally set myself free. I’ve been able to release that part of me that has held onto this bad experience, so that I can make room to accept more of the good. My breakthrough moment was when I realized I was never alone. 

To this day, as much as I look back at that moment in the salon, I also look back at the drive home. 

So frequently do I wish I could re-do the moments of that car ride and tell her what happened. I picture how different my memory of this day would have been if I had just told her right away. How free I could have felt. How I had more power than I thought I did and could have held him accountable for his actions. I now know never to silence myself or let anyone do the silencing for me. Most importantly, I’ve understood that I should never underestimate what I am deserving of. I have and always will be deserving of the truth, and of the love and comfort that comes from telling the truth. 

When my mom picked me up that afternoon, I got in the car and felt like I had lost my voice. “Your hair looks nice. Do you think you want to go back there again for the next one?” she said. 

I looked into the mirror, only to someone unrecognizable, inside and out. As I gazed back at the salon, I watched the man’s silhouette and swallowed my tongue. “No, I’m not that happy with it. I think the color is off. I don’t want to go again.” 

“Okay honey. You don’t have to go back again,” she said. 

I then held on to the safety of her words and let them take me all the way home.